Carlos Sainz says F1 will be better offered to have permanent stewards to increase drivers’ knowledge of how the incident may be handled.
Williams successfully petitioned the right to consider the penalty awarded to Sainz at the Dutch Grand Prix when he was given a 10-second penalty and two penalty points to cause a clash with Liam Lawson. After that penalty It was cancelled in a reviewSainz says that although it is still unclear why stewards may make decisions during the race, he would like to talk to drivers involved in other occasions.
“No, I don’t know how they’re approaching their respective situations, whether they’ll leave it later or decide for now,” Size said. “I think everyone who wants to know the actual outcome, rather than having to wait two hours to actually make a decision when the media, the driver, when the race is over, is putting a little pressure on us all unconsciously or consciously to make a decision during the race.
“What helps is that if you know that the referees are always the same in every race, working with the same referees as the pattern is knowing whether to judge the case at the moment.
Sainz is the view that permanent stewards will improve the problem, but he says he understands the opposition to such moves from other drivers.
“Not everyone agrees in the same way as you can use a football argument. There are different referees in soccer, and other sports always have the same referee and the same fairness of the umpire and sport (concern), that if he is punished two or three times, he seems to hate me, stewards who hate me seem to hate me. So I understand where they came from and people who defend people who don’t have permanent stewards, so I understand their claims.
“I have a very clear opinion on it. I have it with the race director (Rui Marques). This new race director, I really enjoy the approach he has and I’ve seen him in the sport for a long time thanks to working with him for a year.
“We don’t change race directors from one race to another. We have a fixed race director. There are benefits to the development of drivers and relationships that will give us sports and development.”
Despite feeling that the current structure can be improved, Sainz says he was encouraged by the way the review process was carried out and does not live in the intra-race penalty he served in the Netherlands.
“After Zandvoort, you saw me being very angry about the whole situation because I was very certain I had a point and an opportunity,” he said. “Especially when I went after the race to talk to the stewards, they were actually quite open to discussion and made me give my POV.
“They could also say that the judgement was not entirely correct and that there was a good conversation and perception that there was enough mechanism to give us the opportunity and open up discussion again. I think that’s a positive step.
“I’m not saying all cases, all scenarios should be the same, but I think it’s a pretty obvious case like that. I think it’s a good thing to see that there’s a mechanism and a way back.”